The Federal Government’s Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) Tech Fund is designed to help technology developers get funding in the hard to finance pre-commercialization phase. This $550 million fund supports technology supporting “products and processes that contribute to clean air, clean water and clean land, that address climate change and improve the productivity and the global competitiveness of the Canadian industry.” The program doesn’t require repayment and the Government doesn’t take ownership of the intellectual property or an equity position in the company. In addition, they promote the companies they invest in. On the surface, this seems like an ideal program. However, it isn’t for everyone. Before you invest significant time and effort, here are a few things to consider.

The Tech Fund requires joint submissions between firms or with research or educational institutions. If you have developed your technology in-house, you have to balance the value of this funding with the requirement to join in a collaborative arrangement.
In their vetting process, the SDTC review panelists assess the business feasibility and the technical feasibility of proposed technology. They will ask specific questions of how your technology works. In addition, you are not allowed to know the identity of these panel members. SDTC gives assurances that all information is kept confidential, but you have no way of knowing that your information is secure.
This funding doesn’t require payback, but could build some cost into your startup. The biggest issue is the time required to qualify for and receive funding. It takes several months to get through the process and this can slow down your commercialization efforts.

The target area for the SDTC Tech Fund

If the funding potential outweighs these issues, you should proceed with the application. Here are some things to keep in mind as you work your way through the process.
Because this is “free money,” there is lots of interest and therefore lots of competition for this funding. The SDTC representatives advise that this funding application is like fundraising in the private sector. The first stage has a straightforward template to complete but the next rounds require significant business and technical expertise. Assemble your team or hire your resources before you start. Approach this fundraising just like as if you are contacting VC firms.
The SDTC Tech Fund managers are looking for the best bang for the buck they can get. Instead of return on investment, the return they are looking for includes cleaner air, soil and water as well as economic activity in Canada. They also earmark parts of the fund for different goals, like biofuels. Be sure to state all of the environmental benefits your technology can support. It will give you a greater chance of being funded.
For the right companies, the SDTC Tech Fund can provide funding to get them to the next level. If you think your company is a fit for this, you should apply. Keep in mind the caveats stated above. It can be good practice for your company when you raise funding for commercialization. Remember, this is a long process and can be grueling. Make sure you assign the time and resources to give yourself the best chance for success. The deadline for the next round of submissions is October 10. For more information contact SDTC.

While working with a client recently, an interesting issue arose. While generating reports, I was given specific instructions on what information was to be shared. More to the point, I was told what was not to be shared. The concern was the information would cast some people in a poor light. In other words, the reputations of these individuals were put before their performance. This dynamic is the enemy of real progress and can be fatal. It harkens back to a bygone era where information was scarce and those who controlled its flow wielded great power. It comes from the wrong belief that the way to become successful is to be infallible. This means always being right and never changing viewpoints. We hold our politicians to this standard, and as a result, we get governance by ideology instead of common sense.

Not a typical mission statement, is it?

This infallibility myth is borne of the era of confrontational work environments, where any mistake or mishap is perceived as a result of weakness of intellect or character. Large companies dealing with organized labour provide many examples of this. When unexpected things occur, the standard reaction is to find and punish the guilty party. This kills innovation because the pain of failure outweighs the good feelings of breakthroughs. A former coworker of mine aptly described this as “A kick in the ass is worth the same as 10 pats on the back.”
When we look at the world of science and technology, we see improvements faster than most of us can keep up with. Scientific discovery doesn’t seem to be impeded by information hoarding or protecting reputations. Why is that? Why does science succeed where many organizations stagnate and fail?

Want progress? Act like these guys.

I could go into a dissertation on the wonders of Six Sigma, Lean and Theory of Constraints, but instead I will point to one of the best shows on TV, Mythbusters. Each week, Adam, Jamie and the build crew test myths from movies, TV, the Internet and popular culture. When they take on a myth, they always state beforehand what they think the result will be. They then build experiments to test the myth. The interesting thing here is they are only right about 50% of the time. Even more telling is how genuinely happy they are when proven wrong. As Adam often says “We have a result.” To me, this shows where science succeeds where many organizations fail.

Without scientific discovery, we wouldn't have computers as nice as this.

So how can you make use of this great advantage? First, check how susceptible your organization is to the infallibility myth.

• When an unexpected event occurs, is the first reaction of your people one of covering their tracks?
• Is your workplace unofficial motto “Nobody moves, nobody get’s hurt?”
• Is your product or service offering essentially unchanged over several years?
• Does your customer service scorecard measure only complaints and defects?
• Are new ideas treated with skepticism or derision?

If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, you may have an infallibility myth problem. This is a deep-seated cultural problem and won’t change overnight. The best way to crack the ice is to stop acting infallible. If one of your ideas blows up in your face, admit to it. More importantly, try to find the lesson in the failure. In addition, deal with mishaps with your employees as failures of the system, instead of personal failures. Finally, look for the upside in these events. You may stumble upon the next big thing for your organization.

I recently attended a bio-energy seminar at the 20^th Annual PNWER Summit in Calgary. The seminar was informative showcasing innovative companies, new technologies and covering topics such as growth strategies and market demand for biomass energy.

What I found most interesting was a common problem faced by all emerging alternative energy companies. There is a large gap in commercializing unproven technologies, which is raising sufficient capital for demo plants. It doesn’t matter how good your idea is, without adequate funding for a demo plant, you will never be able to prove your technology at a large enough scale to successfully commercialize your technology.

A presenter from the State of Alaska, Devany Plentovich, revealed potential opportunities for alternative energy companies to test new and innovative technologies in areas all over Alaska. Deveany spoke about Alaska’s low population density and related energy issues. 50% of Alaska’s population is located in three 3 cities. The remaining 50% is dispersed all over Alaska and is made up of small towns populated from only a few hundred to thousands of people. The low population density makes it more difficult to deliver cost-effective energy to all areas and as a result some towns have paid up to $9.50 per gallon for oil during shortages. These costs reveal that there is great incentive to lower energy costs and stakeholders in Alaska may be more willing to fund demo plants for innovative technologies.

So why aren’t there more companies trying to locate in places like Alaska. Simply put, from a company’s perspective, it’s riskier. In addition to the common barriers faced by unproven technologies there are more logistical issues to overcome, poor weather conditions and to make matters worse, different areas in Alaska require different strategies to solve its energy issues. But this is where the opportunity lies. It will truly take an innovative company to solve these energy issues and it will be interesting to see who makes their mark in Alaska.

There are places all over the world, like Alaska, that have unique issues and are unattractive for emerging companies to test its technologies. But with the large number of companies who never end up raising capital for demo plants, I think it’s worth taking a closer look at these undesirable locations. Places like Alaska are often overlooked because of its unique issues but companies that are able to “think outside of the box” and develop strategies that are specific to these locations may have a better chance to actually raise funding for demo plants. Many companies come up with good strategies that would theoretically allow them to scale-up worldwide, but without funding for a demo plant these strategies don’t mean anything. Why not target smaller markets for the purpose of raising funding for demo plants and be able to test your technology at a larger scale? Niche markets, like Alaska, are not seen as lucrative in the energy industry. But I believe these smaller markets could serve as a gateway for emerging companies to test their technologies and be one step closer to commercialization.

I’ve had an iPad for over a month now and I thought it would be helpful to relay my experience with it so that other business people can judge whether it would be useful in their workday. I tend to be an early adopter of technology and all things Apple, so I ordered the 64GB 3G version of the iPad as soon as it became available in Canada.

The iPad is an excellent content consumption device. I love surfing the internet and checking my mail with it. The experience is every bit as good as on my Mac. I don’t write a lot of email on it, but when I do, the larger keyboard makes it much easier to type than on the iPhone.

I have Twitterific for keeping track of my twitter accounts and I have to say that this is a far superior experience to any twitter client for the Mac. There is something to be said for scrolling through a list of tweets and touching the links to bring up a webpage, which can then be sent directly to Instapaper. Instapaper is a wonderful free service that I use for storing content that I plan on reading later.

Video and audio, as you would expect, are excellent on the iPad. The lack of Flash support is certainly an issue, especially with many smaller websites that haven’t converted over to HTML5. This can certainly be annoying but it isn’t a deal breaker.

Books are a good experience on the iPad. There are three stores to choose from; Apple’s iBooks, Amazon’s Kindle, and Chapter’s Kobo. I’ve purchased books from all three stores and the prices in the iBooks store tend to be noticeably more expensive than in the other two stores. The Kindle store has the best selection of books but some newer titles are only available on Kindle in the United States, which is frustrating. The user interface, dictionary and the ability to store and read PDF files sets the iBooks reader apart but the other two are acceptable. I think the e-ink screens of the Kindle and the Kobo Reader would be better for a day long session of reading but I’ve read entire books on the iPad without getting a headache from eye strain.

Content creation on the iPad is a bit of a mixed bag. I’m writing this blog post on the Pages application with Apple’s bluetooth keyboard. It’s a bit of an odd experience without a mouse but I think over time I’ll get used to touching the screen to move around a document. All of the iWork applications are useful but they are not the same as their Mac counterparts. I tried editing a large Pages document we are working on and all of the formatting got messed up because the iPad version of Pages didn’t support some the things we had implemented in the document. I think the iWork applications will be good for starting projects that will then be finished on the Mac or creating documents in a crunch but they are not powerful enough for my needs. For this reason, I think I’ll still have to take a Macbook on long business trips.

I think the iPad can be a useful addition for the business owner. It won’t replace a laptop but it fills the space between the laptop and smart phone very nicely. The current offering of software for the device is still pretty meagre but I think once more specialized software gets developed the use case for the iPad will only get stronger.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments section or in the question box in the sidebar.